


All Is To Be Dared

by hawkwing_lb



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Bisexual Cassandra, F/F, Queer Cassandra
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-05-11 13:15:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5627923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hawkwing_lb/pseuds/hawkwing_lb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cassandra Pentaghast was blunt, and difficult, and self-righteous; scarred and hard to like and more comfortable with a weapon than with words. She knew better than to expect a woman like Josephine Montilyet would want her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1. Cassandra.

**Author's Note:**

> [@D_Libris](https://twitter.com/d_libris) wanted Josephine/Cassandra for a giftmas present. Alas, I could not _quite_ deliver on the smut...
> 
> (Title borrowed from Anne Carson's translation of one of the fragments of Sappho.)

1\. Cassandra.

Cassandra had not desired many women -- or many men, for that matter -- in her life. The novels she read made love seem a matter of flowery euphemisms and fluttery hearts, heartfelt declarations and the heat of instant knowledge. (She wanted that combination of passion and sweetness for herself, wanted it fiercely, as an antidote to the loneliness she would never name.)

But it had never been like that for her. Even what she'd had with Galyan had been more a thing of friendship and comfort than passion and desire. He'd been a gentle man, and she'd loved him, yes. But if it had been _true_ love, would she not have made more time for him? Would she have let the pull of duty keep them apart so often and so long that they _grew_ apart, and what passion they did have guttered out to leave only quiet friendship in its wake?

She did not confuse desire and love, of course, and there were many kinds of love. She tried to content herself with friendship, with being loved as a comrade is loved. With the respect of her peers and of the soldiers who came to follow the Inquisition: she'd earned that respect, and the fellowship that came with it. She could acknowledge that, even if she found the overblown admiration for the _Hero of Orlais_ (the incident with the dragons grew more legs every time she overheard someone telling the story) ridiculous.

It was difficult to be content in Josephine's presence.

Cassandra had not thought it would be difficult to acknowledge the other woman's beauty and then lock her awareness of the Inquisition's ambassador as a physical being -- a woman she could touch, if she reached out her hand: kiss, if she ever dared -- away for good. Josephine's beauty was one of the many tools in the ambassador's arsenal, like her unfailing politeness and good humour, the mind like a steel trap that tallied debts and favours and moves in the game, like the way she took such sheer delight in outmanoeuvring her opponents and left them feeling as though _everyone_ had won. Josephine was beautiful, and gracious, and kind. If that had been _all,_ Cassandra would have admired her and quietly folded up her desire in the place in her chest where she kept all such impossible longings, and waited for it to fade.

But that was not all.

In the icy cold of Haven, Josephine rose even before Cassandra, and worked until the oil guttered in the lamps. Her long elegant Antivan fingers bloomed with chillblains and her voice developed a rasp (it was Cassandra who bullied Adan into attending the ambassador daily with tinctures and syrups and potions, lest Josephine too come down with the raw hacking cough that laid so many of their recruits low), but she never complained. Never let anyone -- save perhaps Leliana, who saw all their secrets and more besides -- see her tire.

And then came the attack. Haven burning. Templar troops. A tainted high dragon, a darkspawn magister. Cassandra rallied the soldiers for their flight while the Herald and the mages fought to buy them time, but it was Josephine's quiet unruffled competence, her certainty and fortitude, that kept the retreat from being a rout -- for it was Josephine who bullied and persuaded, encouraged and cajoled, to get a supply train moving along with soldiers and scouts; Josephine and Cullen between them who saw them on the move equipped for a winter march through hostile territory while Leliana led her scouts on ahead and Cassandra called volunteers out in the snow to search their backtrail for any sign the Herald had survived. _Josephine_ who kept their recriminations and fears from dividing them on the long march to the keep Solas called _Skyhold_.

And Cassandra knew then, looking at a soot-stained and travel-worn Josephine Montilyet, an ambassador with the tracks of tears on her cheeks, lips chapped from the cold -- she knew then she was lost.

She had fallen in love, and it was _impossible._

Cassandra was blunt, and difficult, and self-righteous; scarred and hard to like and more comfortable with a weapon than with words. She knew better than to expect a woman like Josephine Montilyet would want her for anything more than curiosity -- there had been men and women enough in Val Royeaux who'd made that plain, over the years -- much less want to court her.

Much less come to love her in return.


	2. 2. Josephine.

2\. Josephine.

 

In Val Royeaux, it would have been inappropriate for Lady Josephine Montilyet to let her glance linger too long on the Right Hand of the Divine. She had known Cassandra Pentaghast then, if only as a passing acquaintance, of course: as Antiva's royal ambassador and Sister Nightingale's friend -- inasmuch as two people in their respective positions could afford things like _friendship_ and _trust_ \-- Lady Josephine Montilyet had known everyone of consequence in Val Royeaux. But Josephine had been the ambassador of a sovereign power, and Cassandra was the voice -- and occasionally the mailed fist -- of the Divine. A liaison, even the suspicion of a liaison, between them would have gone beyond scandal: in their respective positions, the fortunes of nations were at stake.

It would not have been appropriate. It could never have been appropriate. _Especially_ not when Cassandra had appeared beside Justinia at some public occasion, or came as the Divine's representative on those occasions where Justinia thought bluntness, impatience, and Cassandra's honest martial faith the best tools in her arsenal.

It had taken more of Josephine's well-honed discipline than she liked to admit even then, to conceal the fact her mouth went dry and her knees trembled with desire when the Right Hand of the Divine lifted her so-very-aristocratic nose and snorted with indelicate impatience. Or when anger flushed her cheeks and the long elegance of her neck went taut with the effort of her self-restraint.

With the Inquisition, she could look her fill, and admit to herself that she did not admire Cassandra for her striking beauty alone. No, the more she worked with the Right Hand, the more she found herself relying on the other woman's sense of faith and honour, and the occasional dry quips that made it through her formality. Cassandra was a rock, firm and immoveable: a force of nature, direct and uncompromising. Josephine could always trust Cassandra to be _Cassandra_ , and _there_.

Quiet and amused or fierce and forceful, but always, irrefutably, _there_.

Josephine looked, and sometimes she found Cassandra looking back. And she wondered. She knew of Cassandra's fondness for romances: Leliana knew too much about everyone, and in the days when the Divine's Left Hand still unbent enough to gossip, Cassandra's secret vice had been too delicious a titbit to keep _entirely_ to herself. (Leliana had, of course, noticed Josephine's resolute determination not to be seen watching the Right Hand -- and the glances she still, guiltily, had not denied herself.)

Josephine wondered, and she flirted -- a little, deliberately, careful not to push Cassandra into uncomfortable embarrassment. Settled at Skyhold, she made certain their supply caravans brought books from the printers of Orlais and Denerim as well as weapons and armour, food and wood, leather and cloth, metal and stone -- all the tools they needed to rebuild and expand. She made sure there were fresh-cut flowers in Cassandra's quarters, when the Seeker returned from her travels at the Inquisitor's side. She did for Cassandra the small courtesies she did for all the inner circle, to make their lives a little easier, to smooth their ways in a world with a green scar in the sky and a darkspawn magister bent on making himself a god. But for Cassandra she went a little further and did a little more.

And she flirted, and she hinted, and she tried very hard not to hope.


	3. 3. Cassandra.

  1. Cassandra.



 

There were flowers on her bedside table again, as she came in from the baths, and a new volume of poetry, bound in rich green leather with the title embossed in silver. And Leliana, sitting crossed-legged on the bed, a frown of disapproval creasing her face. "What game are you playing with Josie, Cassandra? If you mean to break her heart, it has gone on quite long enough."

Cassandra came up short, the bundle of her weapons in her arms all but forgotten. "What? Leliana -- What --?" And seizing on the one thing she could make sense of: "Leliana, what are you _doing_ here?"

Leliana clucked her tongue against her teeth. "I am here to ask what you think you are doing with Josie."

"Doing? With Lady Montilyet?" Baffled and not a little offended, Cassandra raised her eyebrows and dropped her burden on a nearby chair. "Make _sense,_ Leliana. I've only just returned. I have not been _doing_ anything."

"And that is precisely the problem." But Leliana's expression softened a little. She reached for the book, flicked it open as she slid to her feet. "'He seems to me equal to the Maker, that man who sits beside you, sits and listens to your sweet speaking, your laugh -- it sets the heart in my breast to burning, for when I look at you, even for an instant, there is no speech left in me: no, my tongue breaks and fire races under my skin.'" She closed the volume, gently, and quirked an eyebrow at Cassandra. "Translations of Old Tevene love poems, Cassandra? Who do you think has been leaving them for you? Do you think everyone comes home to gifts and flowers?"

Cassandra wanted to scoff. Her mouth was too dry. She licked her lips. "What do you mean?"

"Oh, Cassandra." Leliana sighed. "For such an intelligent woman, you can be very slow, sometimes. Josie has been trying to _court_ you, sweet fool. Subtly, because she is worried you'll turn her down, or your attachment to duty and honour will lead you to some ridiculous self-denying nonsense. Tell me, did you even _notice_?"

 _"Court_ me?" It came out as a squeak. An embarrassing, high-pitched squeak. Cassandra's cheeks burned, damnable heat rising to her too-easily-flushed face. Her stomach cartwheeled. It was impossible. It could not be true, it was so close to what she _wanted,_ Maker, it could not. "Leliana, I --"

"No," Leliana said, musingly, "I can see now you did not. Talk to her, Cassandra. Josephine is no stranger to courtly intrigue, but in some ways she is an innocent. What she feels for you... I cannot say, but treat her with kindness. For her sake." She patted Cassandra's frozen shoulder in passing. Her voice went soft, but with a knife's edge. "As well as yours."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The poetry here isn't, naturally, my own composition - I'm not that good. Some of you will doubtless recognise it.


	4. 4. Josephine.

  1. Josephine.



 

Cassandra appeared in her office like a thundercloud in a blue sky, her colour high, her well-muscled shoulders drawn tight with tension under her doublet. "Lady Montilyet." Her voice came strained. "Could we speak privately?"

Josephine dismissed her secretaries with a gesture. Cassandra, troubled, coming to her? Her work was not so urgent that it could not wait. "More privately than this?"

"I think -- yes."

Cassandra's hands fretted at her belt. She was not normally given to displays of agitation. A thin tendril of fear crawled up the back of Josephine's throat, but she swallowed it down. "Let us walk, then."

Out on the battlements, the chill breeze of Skyhold's summer ruffled fingers through Josephine's hair. Cassandra's solid strength beside her stirred uncomfortable warmth in the pit of her belly. She folded her hands so that she would not be tempted to reach out, to soothe the crease in the other woman's brow and let her touch linger on the harsh planes of her face. The air smelled of charcoal and the iron tang of the smithy, and the last traces of frost from the high peaks. "What is the matter, Cassandra?"

Cassandra's throat worked. She swallowed hard. "Leliana says -- no." Her expression was fierce, desperate, painful. "Josephine, have I been a fool? The flirting. Did I imagine that, too? Have you been -- is it possible you were -- could you have -- were you trying to _court me_?"

It was Josephine's turn to swallow. If she had somehow offended Cassandra -- Maker, it would be embarrassing. It would hurt, if the Seeker had brought her up here to point out how ridiculous she had been, to try to let her down gently. "If I have offended you, Lady Cassandra, I can only apologise. I never wanted to embarrass either of us. And I did not know how to say it outright, and not sound like a silly girl. But yes. I was trying to court you." She inhaled. "I will stop, if that is what you brought me here to tell me."

"Maker, no, I --" Cassandra, wordless, staring at her. Saying, wonderingly, "I _have_ been a fool. Josephine, you deserve better. You are graceful, beautiful, kind. You are _captivating_."

"So are you." Shakily, Josephine reached up to lay her hand along Cassandra's cheek. "You are _everything,_ " she murmured, when Cassandra allowed the touch -- even turned into it, eyelashes fluttering closed. And, greatly daring: "Does this mean I can kiss you now?"

Cassandra answered without words, with lips and heat and just a little tongue, and Josephine felt her knees go weak with delight.

It was all right, then. It was better than all right.


End file.
